Georgia Republicans swim the deepest.

December 12, 2018 marked a watershed in United States politics. The sentencing of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen for his role in providing hush money to buy the silence of Trump’s illicit paramours not only symbolized the craven nature of the Trump Administration, it unleashed a torrent of facts collected by federal investigators that showed Trump’s own criminal complicity and laid bare the wider gross corruption and immorality of his entire Administration.

Much of what has been revealed in legal filings and court proceedings in recent weeks involving the criminal cases against both Cohen and Paul Manafort was already publicly known, but the legal proceedings have given the facts the legitimacy of having been used in a federal courtroom to convict and sentence Cohen—with more to come when the already convicted Manafort appears for his sentencing. And all of that is only the tip of the iceberg toward which Trump is hurdling.

In short, December 12 showed the tipping point has come in the inevitable destruction of the Trump Presidency.

Our topic today is more narrowly focused. By now, any average person with an ounce of morality would be outraged by Trump and turn their backs on him. Not Republicans. They not only have not repudiated him, or beat a cowardly retreat. Acting according to form, in the wake of the revelations of Trump’s immoral and illegal acts, Republicans have rushed to defend Trump from Cohen.

Senator Hatch Lives Up to Role as GOP’s Senior Poster Boy for Hypocrisy

But Senator Hatch (R-UT) is the hands-down winner of Republican Hypocrite of the Week award, and in the running to win the year’s trophy. His apologia for Trump stands in stark contrast to his condemnation of Bill Clinton for committing the same acts in the Lewinski affair.

2018
Senator Hatch in an interview with CNN: “I don’t think (Trump) was involved in crimes, but even then, you know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to. You can blow it way out of proportion. You can do a lot of things.” When the interviewer noted that it was federal prosecutors and not Democrats who implicated Trump in a crime, Hatch said:
“Okay, but I don’t care. All I can say is he’s doing a good job as president.”

1999
Senator Hatch on Bill Clinton’s possible impeachment: “This great nation can tolerate a president who makes mistakes, but it cannot tolerate one who makes a mistake and then breaks the law to cover it up. Upholding our Constitution — a sacred document that Americans have fought and died for — is more important than any one person, including the president of the United States…committing crimes of moral turpitude such as perjury and obstruction of justice go to the heart of qualification for public office. These offenses (by Clinton) were committed by the chief executive of our country, the individual who swore to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.”

You can’t get more pathetic than Orrin Hatch. When Trump became President, IndieDems listed him among the four most prominent enablers of Trump’s deranged, depraved presidency: Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Orrin Hatch, Nikki Haley. Why Hatch? Because his politics, religiosity, and length of service make him the very epitome of what the Republican Party stands for.

He fervently supports the bedrock Republican platform of “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor and middle class.”

His professed adherence to the Mormon faith is a thin disguise for his overwhelming hypocrisy, which has burst forth in ever more shining glory as he has sacrificed God’s 10 Commandments and Jesus’ Golden Rule on the altar of keeping Donald Trump in power to pass more tax cuts for the rich, while throwing the average American’s health care and welfare under the bus.

Either the Mormon Church has abandoned the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule, or Orrin Hatch has abandoned the Mormon Church. Got to be one or the other.

He is the longest-serving Republican United States Senator.

But it’s Hatch’s words in his CNN interview about Trump’s criminal and immoral acts that nailed him as the pluperfect poster boy for Trump’s morally and intellectually bankrupt Republican Party:

“I don’t care. All I can say is he’s doing a good job as president.”

Imagine. This supposedly God-fearing and Jesus-loving politician openly declares that morality and common human decency are meaningless to him in judging his president. All Hatch cares about is that Trump is doing a good job of making the rich richer. God’s laws and Jesus’ teachings be damned.

And those words, of course, are the literal mantra Republicans have chanted to apologize for Trump since the day he assumed office: we Republicans know as much as everyone about Trump’s congenital lying, vulgarity, bullying, slander, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. We just don’t care.

But Hatch has announced he will not run for re-election this year, bringing his Senate career to an end. Who will take his place as the Senate poster boy for the morally and intellectually bankrupt Republican Party?

IndieDems’ nominee: Georgia’s own Senator Johnny Isakson. He fits the bill in every respect, except maybe for the length of service. But let’s not sweat the small stuff. Isakson’s Republican heart and soul is right there with Orrin Hatch’s—and Donald Trump’s.